Transit and winter

A few transit and winter ramblings follow, for your reading pleasure.

When I got to St. Patrick subway station at a little after 5 today, I noticed something I had never seen before: a busking bass player. Somebody had set up a portable amp and generator halfway down the tunnel underneath Dundas Street, and was cranking out the low notes, stopping every now and then to play drums on the metal support beam. All I can say is that it's probably a good thing that he was doing this during the evening rush. Had he been making a loud noise first thing in the morning, he likely would have been killed and eaten.

When I'm waiting for a train at rush hour, I sometimes have to stand close to the edge of the platform, as that's the only way to actually get on a train. When a train is entering the station, I always stand perpendicular to the platform, facing the direction of the train. It's not as though I think that somebody might push me off the platform - but somebody might bump into me by accident. Those platforms are narrow, and can get very crowded.

If I get going early enough, I like to take the Dundas streetcar to work rather than two subways. (I live near Broadview subway, and work near St. Patrick.) I always get a seat, and I can read, or do a crossword puzzle from the New York Times Sunday puzzle book that I am likely to own for the rest of my life, or look out the window. But I'm frustrated: there seem to be no 505 streetcars arriving between about 8:20 and 8:30. For some reason, there's always this gap; during this time, there's usually three King streetcars at the platform. Ten minutes may not seem like a long time, but it's a long enough wait that the streetcar is usually overfull by the time it gets to Dundas and Yonge. Couldn't they put another streetcar or two on the line, and maybe a few extra rush-hour subways?

I know, I know: the City of Toronto doesn't have the money. I blame the former Ontario Tory government for this. I have this fanciful notion that, given the opportunity, Mike Harris would have happily booted every citizen of Toronto squarely in the groin. And that Jim Flaherty would too, if he had the choice.

February is a tough month. There are so many people I see who seem to be grimly hanging on - as if all pleasure and joy had been removed from their lives due to age, cold, viruses, pain, suffering and assorted trials and tribulations. It's as if they are making it through life on sheer stubbornness alone. I hope I don't wind up like that as I get older.